


Patience, Progress

by muchlessvermillion



Series: Playing with Power [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Political Shenanigans, Space Skype
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 08:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: Feferi Peixes, the absentee empress of Alternia, has been forging a new trail across the universe to replace the destruction the last empress left behind. It's an unforgiving job, but someone has to do it. But with the most recent treaty signed and packed away, it may be time to arrange a visit back home to see how Karkat's managing his post as Alternia's first ever (but maybe not the last!) mutant emperor.Oh, and making time for snuggling with her matesprit. Can't forget that.





	Patience, Progress

**Author's Note:**

> I graduated college so now I have time for things. Huzzah. It's been a million years since the last one. I'm gonna finish more stuff.

Feferi Peixes, absentee empress of Alternia, sank into the cushioned embrace of her captain’s chair. Through the viewport, distant stars shimmered. The twin purple moons of the nearest planet sat heavy in the corner. On the ground, reparations were being made, prisoners were being freed, trading routes were being established that would span galaxies and create fleets. People were cautious to start with, wary. They saw flared wide fins and anglerfish teeth and pink-tinted neck gills, her symbol in fuchsia and gold, and thought of fear and messy death and acres of slaves. Feferi couldn’t blame them. (Well, she could blame them a little. Didn’t she see how different she was, how much better she was? Didn’t they see how hard she was trying?) Still, it was working, slow and steady, with drawn-out diplomatic meetings and shows of good grace. She was healing the wounds her predecessor had left, carving a trail across the universe that would spring up trading posts and flourishing planets and precious things in her wake. Part of her wanted to dig up her ancestor’s decomposing body and shake her, yell in her face, tell her _‘See? There is a way to make your people rich and prosperous without burning everything you find and remaking it to look like you!’_  

Feferi doubted The Condescension would’ve listened, even if she still had the ability to do so. She was ancient, set in her ways after centuries of slaughter. Feferi was new, and brought in something Alternia had never seen before- not in the time The Condescension had ruled, at least, and no one really remembered a time before. They were making steps in the right direction.

She just wished it would happen faster. It didn’t seem quite fair that she and the others should have to work so hard to clean up a mess they had no hand in making. She was exhausted, from looking over all of the treaties and agreements and contracts with a careful eye, from meeting with as many delegates as they could cram into the time they had. She even felt for those resisting the changes they were intent on making; they couldn’t control having grown up in this climate, after all. She couldn’t entirely fault them for being upset by sudden changes that would affect the lives they lived, especially before they had a chance to understand. Karkat had disagreed, of course, in their few transmissions. He insisted it took an idiot to not see this was better for everyone, even those who would lose a great deal of their special privileges. He argued that the highbloods throwing “wriggler tantrums” about their loss couldn’t possibly comprehend real problems, that their _minuscule upset_ (and he’d sounded so sarcastic when he’d said it) didn’t matter in the face of what had been done to everyone else for sweeps upon sweeps, that they could suck it the hell up and deal. Feferi just hoped they would begin to come around as things progressed, once they saw it wouldn’t be all that bad after all. 

Her train of thought was broken by the sudden appearance of warm hands on her shoulders, and Feferi jumped in her chair, fist closing instantly around her bejeweled trident. She heard a throaty chuckle and relaxed her grip, leaning back in her chair.

 

“Wow, princess, I think you deserve a break! Your shoulders are rigor-mortis-tense.”

“Aradia,” Feferi replied, tilting her head back to try and see her. “Is your shift already over?”

“Yup!” Aradia answered, her voice bright. “A while ago, actually. Got the new guy all set up in the helm before I left! Even waited around a bit to make sure he didn’t crash anything!”

“Oh, you’ve been out and aboat that long? I didn’t eelize, I should’ve come to get you!”

“Why? I’m the ship, remember? I could’ve pinged you if I wanted you!”

Feferi finally twisted her chair around, her hands meeting the dip of Aradia’s warm waist.

“You’re naut the ship right now.”

“Debatable!” Aradia chirped. “I’m sort of always the ship. I can still feel it. Fading tingles.” She tipped her forehead against the cool, smooth expanse of Feferi’s bare shoulder. “This is nice too, though.”

“How’d the newbie look? Was he ocray?”

“Don’t worry so much. He got the best instruction I could give him. And I put the _pilot_ in pilot program.”

“You’ve made that joke so many times I’m not even shore it counts as one anemonemore.”

“Well, I still think it’s funny. I matter most, here.” Aradia said, and climbed up onto the captain’s chair, into Feferi’s lap. She was so warm against Feferi’s tyrian cold. Feferi shifted in her seat, frowning.

“I’m important!” She protested. “I’m your matesprit! And the Empress!”

“You know,” Aradia began, her lips twitching up into a grin. “I’m beginning to think you don’t really get the joke.”

“Oh glub. No, I dolphinately get it,” Feferi sighed.

“No, see, because I’m a pilot-“

“I know, sugargrub.”

“No, listen, okay, so, I’m a pilot, but I’m also the _pilot_ pilot, because I was the first one, and it’s the pilot program because it’s the first program of it’s kind but _also_ a program for pilots, making me the pilot pilot of the pilot pilot program.” She stopped, her smile broad, and stared down at Feferi. “And that’s why it’s funny.” There was silence for a moment, before Feferi broke out into helpless little giggles.

“Ocray,” She said. “Maybe it’s still a little funny.”

“I know.” Aradia replied, smug. She pressed her soft, hot face into the side of Feferi’s neck. “So, Empress Feferi.”

“Yes?” Feferi asked, her teeth showing as she smiled. “Pilot Aradia?”

“What’s the plan now?”

“Similar to what it was before, probably!”

“Well, _yeah_. But the treaties are just about signed. Are we moving to another planet? Are we staying here longer? If we stay here longer can I explore their ruins, or would that be insensitive to the centuries of oppression that probably caused the ruins?” Feferi couldn’t help but snicker at that. Then she spun her chair around again with Aradia still perched in her lap, to look out the viewport.

“Hm,” She mused, surveying the endless cloth of starlight that was her domain, now. She leaned towards the thick pane of reinforced plastic, pressing one hand against the matching chill of space outside. Her fingers swallowed up the nearest sun. “Actshoally…” Aradia watched her with curious eyes, twisted to try and see over her shoulder. “Actshaolly, I think it might be around time to check on what’s going on back on Alternia. See how Karkat’s doing with our own ganderbulbs. Stock back up on supplies.” Aradia hummed happily, and ran her fingers through Feferi’s hair.

“You think?”

“I do think. It’d be irresponsible, to not check back fin, wouldn’t it?”

“Can’t surprise him, though.” Aradia offered. “He’d keel over, probably.”

“That might be true,” Feferi admitted. “We should probubbly call first.” She secured Aradia’s arms around her neck, and tilted her head to peer over the other woman’s shoulder, sweeping a hand through the air and grinning at the glittering holographic interface that sprouted behind her fingers. With both hands working around Aradia, she tapped out a message.

 

**CC: )(ey! Do you t)(ink you could coral our -Emperor into a call?**

 

Feferi bit her lower lip as the pester ricocheted across space, aware that it would take a few moments to arrive, and more to get back, even if Sollux was awake. She was never quite sure what time it was on Alternia, anymore. Aradia fully turned in Feferi’s lap, to sit between her legs on the chair and watch for a response.

“He’s probably not even awake.” Aradia said, echoing Feferi’s thoughts. “Or maybe he hasn’t slept in four nights. You can never really be sure.”

But they were lucky. Instead of a pester alert, there was the burbling sound of a call coming in. Aradia reached out and swiped to answer before Feferi could, and an empty respiteblock replaced the vast expanse of space on the viewport.

 

“Fucking hell, Sollux, I told you, I’m _tired,_ ” Karkat was grousing from somewhere offscreen, his voice raspy and unmistakable even across the large treks of starlight between them.

“And it’ll take like a _minute_ , you big wiggler. Let’s just get it over with, and then it’s one less thing to worry about in the evening.”

“Okay, sure, I’ll remember that the next time I’m peeling your half-alive corpse away from three sets of screens and into the ablutions block, or the next time your manic ass won’t sleep for a full fucking week or stop pacing because you’re convinced something will happen the second you shut your damn ganderbulbs and I just about have to drown you in sopor myself to get you to close your stupid—“ He stopped abruptly as he came into view, Sollux’s long fingers wrapped around his wrist. He did _look_ tired. And shirtless. Very, very shirtless, with his hair sticking up in all directions. Feferi thought she could maybe be pale for him for real, rather than just for the cameras, if she just focused hard enough on how vulnerable the exposed line of skin all the way from his underbelly to his throat was. “Hey, Peixes. Sup.”

“Karcrab!” Feferi scolded. “I keep telling you! Call me _Feferi_. We’ll never be believable as pale if you can’t even call me by my first name. It’s good to practice!”

“Oh, great,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “My favorite topic. Look, Peixes- Feferi, about that—“

“Oh! No, no! We can talk about this in like a week, in person, because we’re coming to visit!”

“Oh,” Karkat said, his fingers flexing at his sides. Sollux had left his hand draped across Karkat’s upper arm, and didn’t seem ready to remove it anytime soon. “Okay, yeah. Face-to-face would probably be better for this conversation, anyway.”

“Hey Solluuuux,” Aradia chimed, her voice gravel-sweet. “Have you been sleeping?”

“That depends,” Sollux shot back, with a fangy grin. “Have you been overextending yourself in the helm?”

“Okay,” Karkat interrupted, his hands coming up. He crossed them over each other, a lopsided parody of an ‘x’. “Stop that right there. Keep your palestering to another window, alright, that shit is super gross and we don’t need a front-row seat.”

“Aw, KK,” Sollux crooned. “Don’t be jealous. I know, it’s hard not to be.”

“I’m not- Fuck you, dumbass, that is so not what’s happening here. Feferi.”

“Yeah, Karcrab?”

“There’s something we can talk about now, before you get here. I think we should take the jewels out of the crowns and shit.” Feferi blinked at him, her eyes wide.

“What? But Karcrab, they’re a symbol of solidarity! To show that you don’t have to be Tyrian to wear them anymore!”

“Yeah, okay, I _get_ that,” Karkat said. “But it shouldn’t matter. That’s the whole fucking point, right? If everyone’s opinion is equal, no matter where they fall on the hemospectrum, then people shouldn’t have to wear their colors around all the time, because it shouldn’t matter. They still can if they want to, or whatever, I know it’s a fashion statement for a lot of people, I’m not looking to mandate some kind of color fascism where I approve everyone’s clothing choices—“

“Yeah,” Sollux snickered. “Like you even _could_ , considering you know literally nothing about clothes anyway.”

“Yeah, okay, Sollux, you’re really one to talk— anyway. I just think, that as the people in charge, it’s up to us to show it doesn’t matter. People can make their own choices, but it shouldn’t be such an expected thing anymore. Everyone’s supposed to be equal, right, even if everyone isn’t the same. Maybe we don’t always have to wear it on our fucking lapels.”

“Aw,” Feferi replied, with a little pout. “I _like_ my color. But I sea what you mean.” She looked over at her trident, lovingly used again and again as she practiced to take down her predecessor, every gem on it carefully arranged. “Could I use uncolored jewels? White, maybe?”

“Yeah, whatever you want. I really don’t care. I just don’t think they should be our blood colors.”

“Ocray, then! Shore thing. Good idea.”

“He has them, sometimes.” Sollux said, stretching his arms above his head, every single rib pronounced. She really must have caught them right before they went to sleep. It was a miracle they’d answered at all. Sollux was really shirtless too, now that Feferi was looking at him, and messy just like Karkat was. She tightened her legs around Aradia’s soft, warm form as she leaned forward. Her sharp, toothy smile was an acre wide.

“Oh my cod! Hold on, were you buoys making out?” Aradia cackled, and Karkat groaned. Feferi kept on. “Did you stop making out to talk to us? I’m so flattered!”

“Not that it’s any of your damn business, but _no_ , we were getting ready for coon when you decided to interrupt.”

“Yeah,” Sollux added, with a snigger. “We’ll make out after.” Karkat shoved an elbow into his side, right around the grubscar.

“Oh! Ocray, I won’t keep you tuna long, then.”

“Oh my god.” Karkat pushed his fingers up over his own brow, against the eye socket. Another vulnerable place, Feferi thought. Really, he was full of them. “I hate all of you platonically, I’m going to coon, and I’m not going to make out with Sollux because I’m immediately breaking up with him.”

“Shore you are.” Feferi replied, while Aradia settled back against her chest.

“Yeah,” Sollux agreed. “Sure you are.”

“Good _morning_ , all of you.” Karkat paused, looking at them through the screen. “A week, right?”

“Yeah,” Aradia confirmed, taking one of Feferi’s hands in both of hers. “We’re pretty fast, with the new system! Taking it in shifts so there’s always someone helming, we should be back across the galaxy in no time at all. The tech is pretty incredible, Sollux, you really have to take a look at it yourself.”

“And no one even had to die for it!” Feferi added, proud.

“That’s always a plus,” Sollux said, and Feferi was pretty sure he was trying for serious and failing.

“Okay. Nice to talk to you guys, we’re heading off to coon. See you soon.” Karkat took Sollux’s hand, and reached for the screen, clearly ready to sweep back off to where he’d come from the second the camera went dark.

“Have fun making out!” Feferi and Aradia called out, in unison, just before the viewport went starry black again.

Aradia and Feferi collapsed against each other in helpless giggles.


End file.
